


Take care

by thetimesinbetween



Series: On a rooftop in Bed-Stuy [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brief Mention of Alcoholism, F/F, Face-Sitting, M/M, Minor Injuries, Outed about superpowers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Sam Wilson, Protective Steve Rogers, Slice of Life, Thinly veiled excuses to involve Pepper and Maria because I love them, Vaginal Fingering, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Wanda tries to have a normal life but it doesn't work, brief accidental mind-reading, brief mention of hypervigilance, giant gay crushes on Natasha Romanoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:50:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetimesinbetween/pseuds/thetimesinbetween
Summary: Wanda is in her Wednesday night GED class when her phone screams out an alert. She's trying to make a life for herself—but the inevitable next emergency has arrived.Featuring: badass exhausted Wanda, protective caretakers Steve + Bucky + Sam, Bucky making breakfast and watering succulents because he is Wholesome, Steve making A Plan, Sam being a Bastion of Sanity who simultaneously needs therapy like yesterday, Wanda and her girlfriend banging.A few years post-CACW AU.





	Take care

**Author's Note:**

> This follows directly from the previous part of this series.

Wanda’s phone, which she carefully put on silent half an hour ago, screams “WANDA! WANDA!” in the middle of her Wednesday night class. She grabs it, jumps about a foot in the air and—eyes of all her classmates on her—sprints out of the room. 

She accepts the call. “What’s—” 

“No attack.” It’s Pepper’s voice on the line. “Malfunctioning plane over Jersey City. The pilots can maybe manage—but the weather is—well—and the whole area is densely populated—“

Wanda is up, flying, propelling herself west. It’s raining like crazy and she can’t see a damn thing and she’s freezing. 

They’ve never clocked her, never got around to it before the Accords, stupid, how fast can she even—

“How long do they—?” 

“They’re coasting, they’re trained for this, but they were so low and going so slow when the engines failed, I don’t know, Wanda—they’re flying blind—“ 

“Track me. Make sure I’m going directly there.” 

“Adjust slightly northward,” comes FRIDAY’s voice. 

She does.

“You’re doing great, Wanda,” Pepper says. “At this rate, you’re going to be there in about a minute. Minute and fifteen seconds.” 

“Where do I put it down?” Wanda chokes out. “The plane, where do I put it.” 

Half a breath passes. 

“The Newark airport,” FRIDAY says, “or Woodland cemetery. There are several options. I will guide you.” 

“Thirty seconds left,” Pepper says. 

“Okay,” Wanda says. 

“Twenty seconds,” Pepper says. “Do you see it?” 

“No, I d—“ but lightning strikes, illuminating the sky, and then she does see it: black smoke pouring off metal, hurtling toward her like some fantastic beast. “Oh—god—“ Wanda gasps, screeching to a halt in the air, rain pelting her from every direction at once. 

Okay. She stuffs her phone into her bra. She reaches out, feeling for the plane, energy leaping off her, shivering and sparking around the rain—and—there. There, she has it, she can feel it as clearly in her body as she can see it in front of her eyes. Metal suspended in air, fire suspended in water, _she has it._

It’s a bit like 75 tons of burning metal was just dropped into the palm of her hand. 

She yells—the sky flashes red—and then she yells again because the weight of her hand is going to pull her arm off her body. God damn it, she is _weak_ , she is out of _practice_ , she only slept _three hours_ last night, fuck. “WHERE DO I—“

FRIDAY’s calm, tinny voice emerges from her bra. “Move backward, and down.” 

She moves backward, pulling the plane with her. Smoke billows into her face. Her arm is being peeled off her body at the spine, and she can’t breathe, can’t see through her stringing eyes. 

“Now straight down, slowly.” 

She lowers them. 

“You’re doing wonderful, Wanda,” Pepper says, soft. 

“Fifteen seconds,” FRIDAY says. “You will land on the runway. I have contacted air traffic control and all relevant emergency personnel.” 

“Five seconds,” Pepper says. 

Wanda’s shoes hit concrete. 

“Release the plane,” FRIDAY says, and Wanda sits down hard, and does.

* * * 

_SCREECH_

Wanda jolts, pulls herself out of a blank stupor, as a nondescript white work van screams to a halt on the other side of a chain-link fence. Steve Rogers jumps out, clears the barbed wire like he’s wearing moon shoes, scoops Wanda up off the runway, and sprints back to the van. The whole thing takes about ten seconds. 

“Go,” Steve says. The car peels off as abruptly as it’d come. Wanda isn’t quite curious enough to sit up and figure out who’s driving. Steve’s familiar hands brush her wet hair off her face. 

“You’re all right,” he says. “We’ve got you.” 

She drops back off.

* * * 

Sam is running Wanda a warm bath in Steve and Bucky’s ridiculous old clawfoot bathtub when his phone rings.

He’d made a halfhearted suggestion to take Wanda back to her own apartment so she could recover in her own space, but half a glance at Steve and Bucky’s faces had made it pretty clear that that plan was going nowhere. Staying at Steve and Bucky’s does make sense—they won’t have to explain why there are three older men wandering in and out of Wanda’s apartment, for one—but still. Sam knows from experience that there’s a lot to be said for recovering in your own bed.

Also, Sam had to practically OD on Benadryl to stop sneezing after the cat rubbed against his legs. 

He finishes filling the bath, tests the water, dries his hands, and catches the phone on its last ring. It’s an unfamiliar number. 

“Sam Wilson,” he says. 

“Sam!” comes a woman’s voice. “I’m glad I caught you. Clint and Natasha are out of town and St—“

“Who is this?” 

“Oh sorry, it’s Ester—Ester Deng—Wanda’s girlfriend.” 

“Oh.” Right. Right, Ester. They aren’t Wanda’s only people anymore. 

That’s good. 

…That complicates things. 

Sam walks out to the main room. The television is on but muted; the ticker on the bottom of the screen reads “SCARLET WITCH SAVES NJ PLANE.” They have footage of the whole sky flashing red, and another clip of the plane making it the last several feet down to the runway, surrounded by a pulsing red glow. Even Sam, who has personally been picked up and safely boosted into the air by Wanda, thinks it looks eerie as hell. He frowns and turns away from the screen. 

Wanda herself is still asleep on the couch, covered in an electric blanket and a duvet, breathing evenly. Steve is fiddling with something in the kitchen; Bucky is sitting on the coffee table, watching Wanda like a hawk. A beefy, overprotective, stressed-out hawk. She’s got a huge bump on her head from where she’d briefly passed out on the runway. Couple cuts on her legs. Windburn. 

All in all, not in bad shape for a woman who flew fifteen miles in two minutes through a multicell thunderstorm and single-handedly magicked a burning plane to the ground. The news said there wasn’t a single casualty. Just a dozen or so minor injuries. 

“Sam? Are you there?” comes Ester’s voice over the line. 

Bucky glances up at the sound; Sam mouths _Ester_. Bucky frowns. 

“Yeah, I’m here, sorry Ester.” 

“Have you seen Wanda? We had plans to meet up tonight, and I can get ahold of her.” 

“I see,” Sam starts, and Ester pushes on,

“I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, it’s just—Wanda told me to call her emergency contacts right away if I ever couldn’t get ahold of her, and she has like fifteen emergency contacts, too, but you’re number four after Clint and Natasha and Steve, so here I am—”

“You’re not bothering me, Ester,” Sam finally cuts her off. “…Listen. You’d better come on over to Steve and Bucky’s place.” Bucky frowns up at him, but then nods. “Wanda had a rough night and she’s currently under a pile of blankets on the couch.” 

“Oh thank god,” Ester breathes. “Thank you, Sam. I was really worried.” 

“Of course,” Sam says. He gives her directions and then shoves his phone into his pocket. “All right, Ester will be here in about two minutes, so we’d better have a story before then,” he announces. 

“Wanda got mugged,” Bucky says. “Hit her head, maybe passed out, maybe just woozy. Steve came across her on his way home and brought her here.” 

“…Yeah, that’ll work,” Sam says. Sometimes it’s good to have a spy around.

They don’t even have to hide Wanda’s supposedly stolen bag: she’d left it in class. Steve hurries a sleepy Wanda into the bath, and Bucky pulls the skinfiber sleeve on over his metal arm. Once Ester arrives, they ply her with hot cocoa for a few minutes, trying to give Wanda time to get her bearings. But when Steve gets up to check on Wanda, Ester insists on coming along. 

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” she jokes, but Sam can see the tension around her mouth and eyes. 

Steve emerges a couple of minutes later without Ester or Wanda. Sam and Bucky exchange a look as he drops to the couch between them. 

“Wanda’s got it,” Steve reports quietly. “She’s exhausted, but she’s got the story down.” 

He leans back and covers his eyes. Bucky reaches over and grips his shoulder hard. 

Sam sits back. “Good soldier,” he says with an approving glance toward the bathroom.

“What I want to know,” Steve murmurs, “is where the hell everybody else was.” 

Sam frowns. “I found out same time you did—”

“Not you, Wilson,” Bucky cuts him off. “You can fly, but you can’t land a plane from the outside.” 

Sam concedes this by glancing down at his hands. 

“All of us should have been notified. Vision and Tony should’ve been first responders. Wanda never should’ve been out there alone,” Steve continues.

“She did fantastic,” Sam says. 

“Sure,” Bucky says. “But this ain’t a team of one.”

Steve sighs, one hand still over his eyes. “Ain’t a team at all.”

* * * 

Wanda wakes up to the sound of sneezing and low voices. She has a vague memory of moving from the bath to the guest bedroom, which is good enough for now.

“I’m not even allergic,” Ester whispers, and sneezes again. 

“Yeah, with other cats I just get itchy eyes,” comes Sam’s voice. “Don’t worry about it. That cat’s a menace. I’ll leave the bottle with you.” 

“Thanks,” Ester replies. 

“You all need anything else? Water?” 

“I’m all right,” Ester says. “Thanks, Sam.” 

“No problem,” he says, and shuts the door. 

Wanda nuzzles into Ester’s side but flinches back with a hiss when the huge bruise on her forehead throbs in protest. 

“Sorry, kid,” Ester murmurs. “You awake? Need anything?” 

“I’m all right,” Wanda replies, reluctantly turning onto her back. The low light from the dim bedside lamp is shining into her eyes. They burn. She covers her face with her hands. 

She’s so grateful that Ester is here by her side. She’s so grateful that Steve and Bucky and Sam are looking out for her. But it’s times like this that she wants Pietro, feels the absence of her brother like a stab wound. For as much as he was an idiot more than half the time, no one else has ever made her feel so safe and capable and solid. 

But she has to make do with what she has now. 

What she has now is quite a lot. 

She takes a deep breath and rolls back over. Carefully places her cheek on Ester’s arm, pushing her nose into the side of Ester’s breast. 

Ester taps her phone a couple more times, then sets it aside. She curls her arm around Wanda and clicks off the light.

* * * 

Instagram photo:

Close-up on Wanda’s face covered by her hands. Three-quarters angle. The light is low; everything in the image is either warm yellow or shadow. There is a misplaced purple shadow on Wanda’s forehead: the huge bruise that has spread from her hairline to her eyebrow. 

Caption: someone mugged the best person i know. what the fuck kind of world are we living in. 

* * * 

**nyctaloper** : Okay. I have to tell her. [234902509270.jpg]

 **smolhellion** : yeah

 **smolhellion** : …yeah

 **smolhellion** : you don’t wanna wait until they know whether it was terrorism or a ploy to draw out the avengers or just reg engine failure + shit weather?

 **nyctaloper** : No.

 **nyctaloper** : Even if it was just a mishap this time, let’s face it. That won’t always be the case. And SW is clearly gonna show up. 

**nyctaloper** : I thought maybe she’d retired. But she just put herself back on the map. 

**smolhellion** : yeah. 

**smolhellion** : good luck. 

**nyctaloper** : Thanks <3

* * * 

Once Wanda and Ester are down for the night, Sam knocks once on the master bedroom door and steps in.

Barnes is in bed, putting a knife in an ankle holster, because of course he is. His metal arm is back out, the skinfiber sleeve laid out flat and lifeless on the bedside table. Steve is laying with head pillowed on Barnes’s thigh, talking quietly into the phone. He glances up when Sam enters, then says, “Right—I’ll talk to Hill in the morning and we’ll set something up. Yes—exactly. All right. Goodnight.” 

“What was that?” Sam asks, sitting crosslegged on the end of their bed. 

“Pepper,” Steve says grimly. He sits up and leans into Barnes’s shoulder. “She was the one who called Wanda. She and FRIDAY guided Wanda through the whole thing.” 

“How the hell’d that happen?” Sam asks. Pepper is in the running with Natasha for the most competent person Sam knows, but she’s no handler. 

“FRIDAY and Hill coordinate to detect threats that one or more of us may have to respond to,” Steve says. Sam nods: not new information. “Well, FRIDAY caught this and immediately passed the information directly to Tony. Tony was too drunk to operate the suit. Pepper happened to be in his lab at the time, so rather than routing the situation through Hill and potentially losing time, she called Wanda’s cell right away.” 

“Stark was _too drunk_?” Sam says slowly. Bucky sheaths a second knife, this one under his upper arm, with a little more force than necessary. 

“It’s the anniversary of Howard and Maria’s death,” Steve says. 

“Murder,” Bucky corrects.

“Their murder,” Steve says, unfazed. Bucky’s jaw clenches. 

“Tony’s an alcoholic. He’s been in recovery for a while,” Steve continues. “Pepper says this is his yearly exception. Past three years or so, same deal.” 

“And he couldn’t have told us that beforehand? Like—goddamn personal day coverage?” Sam says, incredulous. 

Steve spreads his hands. “I said the same thing.” His voice sounds calm, but Barnes reaches over to massage the back of his neck, so—maybe not so much.

“And where the hell was Vision?” Sam asks. 

“New Mexico, apparently,” Bucky replies. “Visiting an old SHIELD facility.” 

“He wasn’t even notified, since he was so far out of range,” Steve says.

“And no one thought to tell Hill any of this in advance,” Sam says. 

Steve sighs, straightening up again. Bucky keeps his hand on Steve’s neck. “Yeah,” Steve says. “That’s the problem. We’re going to set up a meeting. Work out a calendar. I know we don’t function as a team, but we have to coordinate better than this, or people are going to die.” 

“Jesus,” Sam says, and collapses back on the bed. 

“Good news is Hill’s intelligence says it really wasn’t a targeted attack, just multiple bird strikes in bad weather,” Steve adds, laying back down on Barnes’s thigh. Barnes produces a third knife and starts to sharpen it, because that’s not an ominous thing to do in bed at all. 

“Not sure I buy that,” Barnes says. 

“Yeah, I gathered from the knife situation,” Sam replies. 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “It feels like a probe. Cause a minor disaster. See who responds and what the response time is.” 

“You think somebody is targeting Wanda?” Sam asks. 

“No. Not specifically. No,” Bucky says. Then, “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of the playing field anymore. Not like that.” 

“And you shouldn’t,” Steve replies. “That’s what we have Maria and her team for. Nat will probably have a good sense, too, when she and Clint get back in touch.” 

Sam lets out a long, whooshing sigh. Wanda, of all people. She hadn’t even told anybody but Clint and Natasha that she was living in the neighborhood until a couple weeks ago. She’s apparently spent the whole year and a half they’ve been back in the U.S. setting up a whole life as an unenhanced person. Somebody with a high school degree, so she can get a steady paycheck. Somebody with a girlfriend who doesn’t even know she’s an Avenger. Sam hasn’t seen her use her powers once, even in private. 

Sam’s hasn’t had a conversation with her about where she stands on the whole Avenging situation, post-exile-in-Wakanda, but it’s not like she could’ve made it much clearer than that. 

The exhaustion hits Sam all at once. “I’m gonna go make up the couch,” he says. 

“Already done,” Steve says. He leans over and squeezes Sam’s arm. “Sleep well.” 

* * *

Ester is laying flat on her back, rubbing her thumb over the curve of Wanda’s shoulder blade. From the grey light creeping through the window, it’s early morning. Her last dose of Benadryl wore off and she can’t really breathe and definitely can’t get back to sleep until the next dose kicks in. She’s got one earbud in, volume all the way down, Simon and Garfunkel crying in her ear about America. _Don’t gotta tell me_ , she thinks. She’s considering switching to a guided meditation app—she’s never going to be able to breathe well enough to sleep if she starts crying, damn it—when a notification pings faintly in her ear. 

She opens her eyes just a slit and blinds herself via her lock screen anyway. The ping is from facebook messenger—Carolina Keplar? Her lock screen goes dark while she tries to remember who that could be, but then she remembers—she’d met her at that anti-deportation protest. They’d really clicked. She’s pretty sure she has the name right. She unlocks her phone and opens the message.

> **Carolina Keplar:**
> 
> Hey Ester, it’s been a while! So, this is going to come out of the blue and seem really weird, but stick with me. 
> 
> I follow you on insta and I thought I should let you know that your girlfriend appears to be the Scarlet Witch. You’ve actually posted photos of Steve Rogers/Captain America, Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier, and Sam Wilson/the Falcon as well. 
> 
> A bit ago you posted a pic of your gf’s bruise (which, ouch) and said she’d been mugged. But you may want to check out cnn.com/11/10/2017/breaking/scarlet-witch-nj-plane/index.html. Scarlet Witch safely landed a crashing plane in NJ earlier tonight. 
> 
> Before today, I figured you might already know, and I didn’t want to be invasive or anything, which is why I hadn’t said anything. Anyway, hope all is well on your end. Let me know if you want to get coffee sometime, and please stay safe. 

Ester sets down her phone. Then she picks her phone right back up and clicks the CNN link. Then she scrolls back through her own Instagram. Then, holding her breath, she searches “scarlet witch closeup.” 

There aren’t any really clear pictures. But she’s been studying Wanda’s face from every angle, in every light, in loving detail, for almost a year. What’s out there is more than enough. 

Ester sets her phone down again. 

The Scarlet Witch breathes out, warm and even, against her ribs.

…Holy fuck. Holy fuck. 

* * *

Sam only manages about two hours of sleep. After he wakes up with his heart racing for the second time—he can’t even remember what the damn nightmare was—he gives it up as a bad job and slips out of the apartment. 

His phone buzzes when he’s halfway down the stairwell. 

_All ok?_

It’s from Bucky. Sam isn’t surprised. Bucky had seemed pretty keyed up, when Sam had been in the bedroom. He probably didn’t sleep much either.

Sam wonders if anybody is actually sleeping in that apartment. 

Sam replies, _y. can’t sleep, will come back_.

He’s too damn tired to take a run, and it’s too early for anything but the 24-hour bodegas and laundromats to be open. He wanders through the familiar streets for a while, and eventually ends up one block over from Clint’s building. He considers jimmying the lock and picking up some of Wanda’s clothes for her, but the last thing he needs this morning is to have the cops called on him. 

Sam’s usually pretty resilient about this shit, but the last couple days have been a lot. He needs to see his niece. He needs to have a consistent schedule again. He needs to get laid. He needs to be able to sleep through the goddamn night when he’s stressed. 

His mood sours. He makes his way back to Steve and Bucky’s apartment, looking forward to curling up under the big blanket on the couch for a couple more hours, even if he can’t properly rest. 

When he lets himself in, though, Wanda’s girlfriend is in his spot, under the big blanket, hugging her knees to her chest. She bolts upright and freezes like a startled rabbit when he enters. 

“Sorry,” Sam says, uselessly. “Just stepped out for a minute, couldn’t sleep.” 

“No worries,” Ester replies unconvincingly. 

“How’s she doing?” Sam asks. He shakes out of his coat and takes a seat next to her. 

“Sleeping like the dead,” Ester replies with a halfhearted smile. 

“And how are you doing?” 

There’s a pause, and then Ester says, “Not fantastic.” 

Sam nods. He half expects her to start spilling her guts to him—that kind of thing happens to him a lot—but she just slowly recurls into the blanket and picks up her phone. 

_Millennials_ , Sam thinks, but then he does the same. 

* * *

“Coffee?” asks James, who is the Winter Soldier. 

Ester had been drifting and hadn’t even noticed him entering the room—which, _of course she hadn’t_ , he is _an internationally renowned assassin_. 

Ester questions every decision she has ever made in her life. Then she says “Yes, thank you.” It only comes out a little strangled. 

He doesn’t give her a weird look or anything. He just nods and goes into the little kitchenette. Before she knows it, there’s coffee and eggs and bacon and hash browns happening, and her stomach is growling for the first time since Wanda didn’t show up for their date. 

The Winter Soldier’s hair is in a topknot. He is standing ten feet away from her in a cute little kitchenette, holding a spatula, wearing a pastel pink hoodie with thumb holes, making breakfast. Literally, as she’s staring while pretending she’s not staring, he fills up a glass with tap water and goes around the kitchenette watering a bunch of little succulents that Ester hadn’t even noticed. 

He doesn’t overwater them, either. They look really healthy.

What the fuck. What the _fuck._

Sam, who had passed out on the other half of the couch—Sam, _who is the Falcon_ —grumbles and props himself up. 

“Coffee, Wilson?” the Winter Soldier asks. 

“Ughhhh,” the Falcon groans, which apparently means yes, because a few seconds later there are two mugs of coffee and a miniature pitcher of milk sitting on the table in front of Ester and Sam. 

“Let me know if you want sugar and I’ll dig some up,” the Winter Soldier tells her. 

“I’m good,” Ester manages. 

See, the thing is, Ester couldn’t really stay in bed with the Scarlet Witch while having a full-scale freakout. But she couldn’t just walk away from her hurt, scared girlfriend either.

She compromised by creeping out of bed but remaining in the apartment before beginning said full-scale freakout.

By the time she had gotten through enough of the emotional rollercoaster (the mountain of lies; her girlfriend probably being in constant danger; her girlfriend’s clearly traumatized reactions to like twenty different things suddenly making a lot of sense) to Google around some more and realize that, yes, she was _definitely sitting in Captain America and the Winter Soldier’s apartment_ , which was _not better than being in bed with the Scarlet Witch_ , the doorknob turned and _the Falcon walked in_ , and now Ester is just trying to, like, make it through. 

If she doesn’t get it together in the next few hours, she’s going to have to call out of her shift this afternoon. 

Fuck, she does not have enough of a savings cushion to casually call out of work right now. 

Slow breaths. Bite of toast. Bite of bacon, because she’s mostly vegetarian these days, but fuck it right now, just fuck it, if she can’t have comfort bacon at a time like this then literally what is the point.

“You doing all right over there?” Sam asks, but luckily she’s saved from answering because the master bedroom’s door swings open and out walks Captain fuckin’ America, wearing sweats—only sweats—with a towel slung over his damp naked shoulders. 

Ester’s mostly gay. Solid Kinsey 5. But like… _jeez_. 

He’s looking down at his phone, saying “So Hill texted and—” 

“We have guests, would you put some clothes on,” the Winter Soldier interrupts, pointedly. 

Captain America freezes, locks eyes with her, blushes down his whole chest, and disappears back into the bedroom.

“Swear to god,” James mutters under his breath, scraping what must be seven scrambled eggs onto a plate. When a fully dressed Steve steps back out, James shoves the plate at him and says, “Sit.” 

“Yessir,” Steve replies. He has a surprisingly devious smirk. 

“Seriously, do I need to remind you we’re still here,” Sam says dryly. 

“Nosir,” Steve replies, with, if Ester’s not mistaken, a flirtatious little head tilt toward Sam. 

“Knock that off,” James grouses, shoving at Steve as he walks by. “And budge up, Wilson, can’t I sit on my own couch?” 

Ester has never seen anybody scoot over sassily before, but Sam manages, with plenty of grumbling. 

“Thank god you’re here or they’d start roughhousing and destroy the couch,” Steve tells her, all friendly and conversational like Ester’s not on a couch with two crotchety superheroes. 

“Actually,” Ester says, and has to clear her throat before going on. “Since you mention it—I want to get Wanda settled back at her place before my shift this afternoon. I think she’ll be up to walking the couple blocks but—”

The others exchange a few quick glances. 

“Well—let’s see what Wanda’s ready for once she’s up,” Sam says. 

“She’s up,” croaks a voice from the hallway. 

Wanda shuffles in, draped in a quilt and looking worse for the wear. 

James is up in a flash: “Sit,” he orders her, and hops over to the kitchenette. He retrieves a loaded breakfast plate from the oven and sets it on the coffee table in front of Wanda, who has settled on the couch between Sam and Ester. 

“I don’t have much an appetite right now,” Wanda says, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. 

“Start with toast,” James replies firmly, and stares Wanda down until she takes a grudging nibble. 

Ester wonders how she missed the way that the four of them function as a team, or maybe even a family—not much like old gym buddies from upstate at all. 

She’s got to get Wanda out of here. Does Wanda even want to be here? Ester can’t think, much less talk things through with Wanda, while surrounded by all these superheroes. And she sure as hell can’t go on pretending she doesn’t know her girlfriend is the fucking Scarlet Witch. 

“Hey,” Wanda murmurs between bites, nudging Ester’s knee with her own.

“You okay?” Ester asks. 

Wanda nods. “Just an awful headache. It’s making me a little nauseous.”

Ester nods. Wanda attempts another nibble of toast but only manages about a crumb. 

“Are you okay?” Wanda asks, still quiet. “You…um. You left.” 

Ester deflates even further. “I’m sorry—I was just out here on the couch. I thought you were asleep.” 

“I woke up a few times,” Wanda replies softly. “Headache.”

“I’m sorry,” Ester says again, feeling about an inch tall. Wanda’s not really a complainer; her head must be killing her. “Just a lot on my mind,” she adds weakly. “Hey, do, um, d’you want me to help you get back to your apartment? If you’re feeling up to it, I could help you back after breakfast and make sure you’re settled and everything before my shift.” 

Wanda sits back and shifts so she and Ester are sitting face-to-face. Eye to eye. 

“Oh god,” Wanda gasps, recoiling. “You—oh my god.”

“What?”

“You know,” Wanda says. 

Ester freezes. 

Total silence—Steve, James, and Sam are all staring at her. 

“Um,” Ester croaks. “Yeah.” 

Wanda stands up—sways, just enough that Ester and Sam both reach out in case they need to catch her—and walks rigidly back to the guest bedroom without a word. 

There’s a brief pause where everybody waits for everybody else to make the first move. 

“I’m gonna talk to her,” Steve says, but Sam gestures him back into his seat.

“Give her a minute,” he says. 

Then Sam turns, smiling, opening his mouth doubtless to say something appropriately friendly and soothing to Ester, but the Winter Soldier chooses that moment to shuck his hoodie and _peel the skin off his left arm what the f_ —

But there’s metal beneath, not flesh—of course. 

Of course, it was some sort of sleeve all along. 

““No reason to bother with this damn thing, then,” James says, satisfied, before shrugging back into the hoodie. The arm whirs a little, and the cat darts out of nowhere to attack James’s metal shoulder. 

“For god’s sake,” Sam mutters, scrubbing his hands over his face. Then he looks up at her, like, _what can you do?_ “Ester, honestly, if you haven’t taken off running by now, you’re gonna be fine. Finish your breakfast.” 

Ester shoves the last of the bacon in her mouth. This is not the worst possible way this conversation could’ve gone down, but it’s pretty bad. Including but not limited to her girlfriend possibly reading her mind. Has Wanda been reading her mind this whole time? Because that would be really scary. Genuinely, really scary.

Honestly, the only mitigating factor here is the Winter Soldier’s perfect bacon. 

“So how’d you find out?” James asks. “Last I checked, they didn’t get a face shot on the news.” 

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. It’s not like she’s going to be able to keep information from the Winter Soldier. 

“Someone who follows my personal Instagram recognized her,” Ester replies. 

“I knew that was a security breach waiting to happen,” Steve sighs. 

“No, you were just embarrassed that somebody finally got evidence of me kissin’ up on you the same way I been doing since 1932,” James counters, plopping down nonchalantly in Steve’s lap. Steve raises his eyebrows but goes along with it. 

Which, all right, so. That’s official. The couple thing was not part of their cover. Ester had guessed as much, since both of them seemed to live out of the same bedroom in a two-bedroom apartment, but…wow. Nothing like witnessing two male superheroes from the 1930s cuddle. This is, like, a queer studies thesis in the flesh.

“Priorities in order as always, Barnes,” Sam says dryly, knocking James’s foot with his own. James just flips him the bird. 

Steve, clearly used to his friends’ antics, turns to her. “I know you’d like to take her home, but Wanda should stay here for the day,” he says. “She wasn’t on the map at all before. We were careful getting her out of Jersey and back here—pretty damn sure we weren’t tracked. But better safe than sorry. If anybody’s been waiting in the woodwork to come after her when she popped back up, this is prime time.” 

“I can take care of myself,” Wanda says, stepping into the room but coming no further. She’s got her shoes on. 

Steve nudges James aside, stands up and looks Wanda in the eye. “That’s not how it works,” he says firmly. 

“I don’t think any of you have any idea how it works,” Wanda replies. “In the last five years, we’ve destroyed a city in my home country, gotten my brother killed, gotten nearly every government on earth coming for our throats, got me and Sam locked in an underwater prison, and got us exiled to Wakanda for a year and a half. And now, somehow, two weeks after I let you know I’m living in the city, I get a call to go save a plane falling out of the sky.”

Steve’s jaw clenches.

“That’s fair,” Sam ventures. 

Wanda’s face is blank. “I’m going home,” she says, and turns toward the door. Ester scrambles off the couch to follow her, but then— 

“Wanda—I’m sorry. You really do have to stay here. At least until tomorrow,” Steve says. 

Wanda turns back slowly. The air sort of—crackles. The hairs on the back of Ester’s neck stand on end. 

“You don’t tell me what to do. I don’t have to do anything.” 

Sweet, holy fuck. Ester’s girlfriend is the Scarlet Witch. 

“You’ll remember that trying to confine me did not go well for Vision.” 

Ester’s girlfriend apparently won a fight with the synthetic guy who can shoot a laser out of his forehead. Goddamn.

The other three are sitting very, very still.

Sam loosens up first, relaxing back into the couch. “Right,” he says, slowly. “But the whole problem with what happened yesterday is that nobody had any backup. It was you, alone. We don’t want that. Ever. Somebody comes after you now, Wanda, we want you to have all the backup there is. Okay?” 

“That’s all I meant, Wanda,” Steve says, shooting Sam a grateful glance. “I’m not trying imprison you. I’m not even trying to be your captain. I’m just trying to be your friend. The kind of friends who watch out for one another no matter what.” 

“Everybody here loves you, kid,” Sam says quietly. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, but let us watch out for you while you’ve got a mild to moderate concussion and you’re feeling really awful.” 

Wanda slowly deflates. She looks exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that Ester’s only seen in, like, pictures of refugees, and pictures of people fleeing the Dust Bowl, things like that. 

Once Wanda relaxes her hands, the air settles. She kicks her shoes off without a word. She walks stiffly to the couch and promptly buries her face in Ester’s neck, crying. 

“Oh,” Ester murmurs, startled, and wraps Wanda up, pulling her half into her lap, stroking her hair back from her face, letting Wanda completely destroy her favorite hoodie with snot. 

Wanda suddenly startles back. “Ester, I—we—”

“Yeah,” Ester says. She reaches out and pushes Wanda’s hair out of her face again. There’s her girl. Still the same girl she’s been in love with for months. “Yeah, we’re gonna have a talk about this. But for now how about you stay right here and have a cry where I can hold you, all right?” 

Wanda’s face crumples, and this time she buries her face in Ester’s lap, sobbing. 

“Well,” James says. “I”m gonna do a perimeter check and get fancy drinks downstairs. Any requests?”

* * *

By the time Bucky slips back through the door, Wanda is feeling a little calmer. She’s sprawled across the couch, her head cradled in Ester’s lap, her feet tucked against the arm on the other side. Ester is running her fingers through Wanda’s hair, probably creating more knots than she’s getting out. It feels nice, though. 

“Perimeter’s clear,” Bucky announces. He perches on the arm of the big cushy chair Sam’s sitting in, and gets a shove for his trouble. He pinches Sam in retaliation, then hands him some fancy juice. 

“Good,” Steve says, walking in from the bedroom. “Hill’s going to call in a few and update us. Wanda, she’ll want to debrief you as well.” 

Wanda sighs and sits up, thigh to thigh with Ester. Bucky hands each of them an iced coffee, and Wanda gives him a weak half-smile. God knows she doesn’t need a caffeine headache on top of all this. 

“Should I stay?” Ester asks her quietly. 

“Please do,” Wanda replies. 

She wants Ester’s steady warmth. And, beneath that, she’s terrified that if Ester walks now, she won’t come back. She’ll get cold feet. She’ll think of all the things Wanda could get her mixed up in—or of all the things Wanda could do to her, if she wanted, that Ester couldn’t prevent no matter how hard she tried. She’ll start asking herself if it’s worth it. 

Wanda knows she doesn’t measure up so well against fear. She’s got a couple weeks in a supermax secret prison and a year and a half of exile as proof of concept. 

“Okay. Let me call out,” Ester murmurs. She unlocks her phone; Wanda glances up to be sure nobody’s about to knock it out of her hand shouting about opsec. Nobody does—Steve’s standing at the kitchen counter picking at some eggs, and Sam is frowning at something on his phone. Bucky is watching Wanda herself, but softly. Kind of how he hovered over her like a mama bear last night. 

“How’s the bruising?” Bucky asks quietly, dropping onto the couch next to Wanda, and then they both jump as Ester’s voice completely changes next to them. 

“Hi, Greg!” she chirps. “I’m so sorry, but I’ve just had a family emergency come up, so I have to call out today! I’m going to need you to cover my shift! Great, uh-huh, thankssomuchbye!” 

“Wow,” Sam finally says when she hangs up.

“Customer service voice,” Ester sighs. “It’s the only thing that works. He was gonna try to strong-arm me into finding my own cover.”

“Impressive,” Sam says.

“You should hear Steve’s,” Bucky says.

“Money buys bonds, bonds buy bullets! Put a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun!” Steve says, in a completely false announcer voice. 

Ester cackles next to her—one of Wanda’s favorites of Ester’s many laughs. 

“Why is it a tongue-twister?!” Ester says. 

God, it feels so _normal_. 

Can she really have this? Can she have all of them in her life at once?

She remembers her backpack and all her books and pens and tampons and miscellany, abandoned in class last night at half a second’s notice. 

If she does have them all—will her life still be her life?

Steve’s phone rings. He quickly swallows a bite of eggs, and says, “Hey, Maria.” He flicks his phone, and Hill’s face appears on the flatscreen mounted on the wall above the armchair. 

Wanda rubs her eyes and tries to look alive. She wishes she’d thought to ask Bucky for a hair tie. 

“Morning, everyone,” Hill says. 

It’s been a long time since Wanda’s seen her. She hadn’t really expected to be in touch with Hill ever again. It’s good to hear her voice. 

“I’ll try to keep this short and sweet. Wand—wait, who’s the newbie?”

“This is Ester, my girlfriend,” Wanda replies. 

Maria cocks an eyebrow. “I’m assuming from the fact that Barnes isn’t chucking her out the window that everything’s kosher.”

Bucky shrugs and nods. Out of the corner of her eye, Wanda sees Sam make a face like ‘seems legit.’

“All right then, let’s get started,” Maria continues. “Wanda, I need to debrief you. Then we’ll all go over the next few months together. FRIDAY and I are working on a secure, shared calendar. That way, we’ll at least know who is where and when. It’ll help us coordinate urgent responses. It’ll also hopefully prevent this sort of situation from happening again. We don’t want one person to be forced to respond without backup on the way, and without any extraction plan.”

“Right,” Steve and Sam say at the same time. 

“Strongly agree,” Wanda adds. 

She’s angry as hell that none of this was worked out earlier. But maybe it’s partially her fault, too. Here she is, concussed and furious because, apparently, nobody’s had any idea what anybody else has been doing for the past few years, and as a result, a disaster fell to her by default. But it’s not like she herself told anyone other than Clint and Nat where she was or what she was doing. 

Maybe the problem is that everybody desperately wanted to be left in peace. 

Wanda should have known better than to try it. 

Peace isn’t something you can just decide you deserve. Peace takes constant work. 

“Wanda,” Hill says, and Wanda’s attention snaps back to the screen. “Walk me through it, start to finish.”

“I got the call in class. Wednesday night government class.”

“You’re in a government class?” Hill interrupts.

“I’m getting my GED,” Wanda replies.

“Oh,” Hill says. 

“I was in class, and my phone starting screaming at me. Screaming my first name. My cover has the same first name, so that’s not as bad as it could have been. I picked it up and Pepper was on the line, telling me a plane in Jersey was—crashing, malfunctioning, I don’t remember. I ran straight out of class and started flying West. I have no idea if anyone saw me. It was dark and raining really hard, so possibly not. I don’t know how fast I can fly—we were gonna measure it before the Accords, when we were upstate, but we didn’t get to it in time. So—I was—all I could do was push and hope I’d get to Jersey before—. Anyway, FRIDAY was tracking me. You could probably get my speed from her. 

“I got there. I just—grabbed the plane. I should’ve tried to guide it instead of—but I just grabbed it. Picked it up. It was like I took its whole weight into the palm of my hand. I didn’t do it right. I haven’t—um.” Wanda glances toward Steve, and Ester. “I haven’t used my powers in a long time. I wasn’t in practice. 

“I got the plane down, but it drained me more than it should’ve. I sat down. Apparently hit my head on the pavement, because the next thing I knew Steve was jumping over the perimeter fence and extracting me.

“We got in the back of a van. I don’t know where the van came from, and I’m not sure who else was in it. I think I passed back out. I’m sure we took some sort of circuitous route back—“

“Confirmed,” Bucky says.

“We switched vehicles twice,” Steve says. “And we got on the subway for the last leg.” 

“I barely remember that,” Wanda sighs. 

“You were pretty out of it,” Sam says. “You did good, though. Stayed on your feet for us.” 

“I pretended you were my drunk sister,” Bucky says. “Otherwise, it looked….”

“Bad,” Steve says. 

“The next thing I really remember is laying on the couch here,” Wanda says. “Bucky was keeping an eye on me. I took a bath. Ester came over. That’s it.” 

“All right,” Hill says. “Good. Let’s dig in. Give me the cross streets for your class and—”

Wanda sighs and steals a swallow of Ester’s coffee. This is going to take a while. 

* * *

Three hours later, even Ester is flagging, and all she’s doing is holding Wanda’s hand. Whoever this Hill is, she’s thorough as hell. But it’s lunchtime, even for superheroes: James slips back in through the door carrying five sturdy paper bags that smell tellingly of thai food. He goes into the kitchen and starts unpacking them—stack after stack of steamed-up plastic containers and fiddly little sauces. 

Wanda looks exhausted, but she visible perks up when the smell of food reaches her. 

“Maria, let’s finish up tomorrow,” Steve cuts in, eyeing Wanda.

Hill’s face on the screen frowns, but Sam adds firmly, “Wanda’s recovering from a concussion. I know all this is important, but she needs to rest.” 

“Your call,” Hill replies. 

“Thanks,” Steve says, and ends the call. 

“Do you know her?” Ester asks Wanda quietly. 

Wanda nods. 

“She didn’t even ask how you’re doing,” Ester murmurs. 

Steve sits down next to them. “She was second in command at SHIELD before it imploded,” he explains as James digs out utensils and bowls for everyone. “She’s a fantastic handler, but she doesn’t exactly coddle her field operatives.” 

“But—Wanda’s not her field operative?” Ester says. 

Wanda does that adorable head tilt that means she’s skeptical. 

“She’s certainly been assuming that I am,” Wanda replies. “And yesterday I proved her right.” Then she sighs, heavily, and picks up a container of pad thai. “I’m going to eat in bed,” she says. She hesitates, looking embarrassed, apparently remembering that she’s in someone else’s home. “I promise I’ll wash your sheets if I spill,” she adds. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Steve says. “Go rest.” 

Ester picks up some takeout of her own and gets up too. “Unless you don’t want me to.” 

“Come,” Wanda says. 

The bedroom is refreshingly dim and quiet. Suspiciously quiet, actually—Ester wonders whether Steve and James soundproofed their walls. She hasn’t heard a siren once all morning. 

Wanda sets her food on the bedside table and faceplates on the bed. “Ow,” she says, muffled by about five pillows. 

“Gentle with that head,” Ester says. “I’m pretty attached to it.” 

Wanda grumbles a little, the way she does when she’s deeply asleep and her alarm goes off. 

“Up,” Ester says, crawling onto the bed and poking Wanda’s shoulder. “You need to eat.” 

“Working on it,” Wanda replies, slowly sitting up. 

“Is the world spinning?” Ester asks. 

“No,” Wanda says. “But my head is pounding.” 

Ester opens the pad thai for her—Ester’s hands are steadier, when Wanda is that tired—and hands it to her. Wanda practically inhales the first bite. 

“Yeah,” Ester says, taking the first bite of her own noodles—and holy shit are those good, where did James get them? “I guess passing out on concrete will do that.” 

“I guess so,” Wanda replies. 

“You learn something new every day,” Ester jokes weakly. 

“Whatever it is you need to say, just say it,” Wanda says. She swallows, and meets Ester’s eyes. “I’m not that concussed. I can take it.” 

“Well. I’m mostly scared and overwhelmed,” Ester says. “Which you can’t help me with very much right now.” 

Wanda nods. She’s watching Ester carefully, closely. Ester wants to believe that Wanda’s not peeking into her mind, but she doesn’t know. Which—

“And—I don’t know if you’re reading my mind. Now or in general.” 

Wanda’s already shaking her head. “No. No. I don’t do that. I never had before, with you. This morning was unusual. It’s been so long since I’ve touched my powers—and the concussion. It won’t happen again, Ester.”

“Okay.” 

“Normally I have excellent control over it. I—” she looks a little frightened— “I guess I can’t really promise anything until the concussion heals. I’ve been getting flashes when the headache gets worse. But never before, and never again if I can help it. Unless you ask me to.” 

Ester nods. Tries to take a moment to absorb that—the explanation, and the offer. She believes Wanda, but she can’t really process it, at all. She has to keep going. 

“I’m also hurt,” Ester says. “I know you must have had your reasons. But it’s a lot of lies to swallow, Wanda.” 

“I know,” Wanda chokes out. 

It’s going to be hard to keep this conversation going if Ester starts to cry, so she sinks it down. She doesn’t have to cry if she doesn’t damn well want to.

“I want to know your real past, your real life. The real reasons for—shit that bothers you. That panic attack you had last month. Why you’re really getting your GED. I want to know about your family, your missions—everything.

“If you don’t want me to know all that. To know you. Then I can’t do this. All right?” Now Ester’s having trouble talking. Her throat is closing up. Wanda nods. Ester pushes on: “But if you can let me in, then I’m all in, Wanda. You know that. We’re not just in love, we’re—”

“We’re in cahoots,” Wanda says, with the littlest grin hiding in her cheek. 

“That’s right, we’re in cahoots,” Ester says, and can’t resist anymore, and leans over to kiss her. 

Wanda sighs into it, melts into it, strokes at Ester’s knee. 

“I’ll tell you everything,” Wanda says against her lips.

God, Ester wants to have her. Wants to—it’s really embarrassing actually—tuck her into bed and heal her and make her dinner and braid her hair, and fucking devour her. 

Wanda draws back to look into Ester’s face. “I want you to know me, Ester. I’ll tell you everything, I’ll—god. It’s lost now anyway. I’m never going to get out the way I wanted.” 

“One problem at a time,” Ester says. 

Wanda nods. Leans in. Kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her, like breathing. 

Eventually, Ester gets a fist in Wanda’s hair and pulls her back, slowly. Wanda mouths at her arm, panting, eyes heavy. 

“You gotta eat,” Ester says, reluctantly. 

“Yes,” Wanda says. Then she thumbs Ester’s nipple through her shirt. Shit. 

“I know I’m really attractive, but you’ve really really gotta eat,” Ester says. 

Wanda snorts and reluctantly draws back. “I—”

“Literally do not even go for the pun. Pick up that fork. You’re injured. Eat.” 

Wanda takes a bite, then takes about ten more in a row. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ester says, and Wanda can’t even reply because she has like half a pound of noodles in her mouth. Ester cracks up and digs in too. 

“Related note,” Ester says. “I want to be added to your emergency contact list.” 

Wanda nods, and chews and swallows several times before managing to say, “I can do that. Actually, I’m sure Hill will ask for it tomorrow.”

“So I should be expecting calls from—what, the Avengers liaison?” 

“No,” Wanda replies. “No. I hope not.” 

“I mean, I hope not too, I don’t want you hurt—”

Wanda shakes her head. “Of course. I meant, there are no Avengers anymore. And if there were—I don’t want to be involved. I hadn’t planned on it. I didn’t even know—but of course Stark and Hill and all of them know where I live, it’s just—” She sets her food aside. “I wanted to have a life. I don’t want my home to be bombed. I don’t want the people I love to be killed. I don’t want to be experimented on. I don’t want to be imprisoned. I don’t want to be exiled. Not again.” She pauses, searching for words, then gives up with a sigh and takes a bite of food instead. 

“Right,” Ester says, quietly. 

“What?” 

“Same girl. Better explanations for the extensive trauma,” Ester says.

Wanda snorts out a laugh despite herself. “Yeah.” 

“So…what now?” 

“What now what?”

“What now with school, and then trying to nail down a 9-to-5 for a while? Dogwalking on the side until you’re steady? The whole—thing.” 

Wanda pushes her hair out of her face. She’s probably pulling at the roots to calm down, Ester thinks. She always pulls too hard. She’s gonna make her headache even worse. 

“I don’t know,” Wanda says. “All that is still the goal. But, after last night—I need to be prepared. I’ll start training with them again. Sam and Steve and Bucky—James—train together some, I think. And Clint and Natasha. But—“

“Wait,” Ester says, frozen. 

“What?” 

“Wait. _Clint and Natasha_ —!”

Wanda’s face breaks into a grin. “It still hadn’t all come together, had it.” 

“Oh my _god_.” 

“There you go.” 

“Okay, Natasha, I can see. But—Clint.” 

“You can’t—well, you’ve never seen him with a bow and arrow, have you?” Wanda says. 

“Clearly I have not _seen him with a bow and arrow_ ,” Ester squawks, over Wanda’s laughter. 

“You’ve seen his arms, at least,” Wanda adds. 

“Yeah, and I jumped to ‘my weird nice landlord is a gym rat,’ not ‘my weird nice landlord is _Hawkeye the Avenger_ ’!”

Wanda laughs again. “I was worried about moving into his building at first,” she explains. “I thought people would put it together. But Natasha was right. Nobody jumps to ‘Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch live with me in Bed Stuy.’” She sighs a little dreamily. “I don’t know why I bother questioning her.” 

Ester’s wide-eyed. “Yeah, me either. Jesus, you thought I had a crush on her before. Now I know she’s the—the fuckin’ Black Widow, oh my _god_.” 

“We should go dancing with her sometime. Blow off steam. She’s invited me before,” Wanda says, all casual. The little sneak. She knows Ester is going to have that fantasy burned into her brain forever.

“Right. Because you guys are actually close. Because she’s not just our landlord’s hot friend who we ogle sometimes. Respectfully.” 

“Mmmmmmmhm.”

“Oh my god, have you been _telling_ her that we ogle her?”

“I may have mentioned it,” Wanda laughs. 

“Wanda!”

“You’re acting like she’s not omniscient anyway!” Wanda insists. “She knew I was bi before I did.”

“Oh my god.”

“I swear she took one look at me and said to herself, ‘well, if I wanted to fuck that girl I’d just have to ask.’”

“Oh _my god_.”

“Don’t worry, I think she actually assesses everybody’s sexual availability. And she never asked. She and Steve were the head of the team when I was part of it. She taught me a lot about disguise. Surveillance.” Wanda looks down. “She was a good mentor, and she’s a good friend. I miss her.” 

“Is she—?”

“She and Clint are on a mission now,” Wanda replies. “They should be back pretty soon. That’s all I can say.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. That’s why Clint hasn’t fixed the hall light.” 

“I’m suddenly much less frustrated about how long our landlord has ignored the busted light,” Ester admits. 

“Yeah.” Wanda smiles. “It’s weird. To talk about all this with you. I didn’t think I would ever get to.” 

Ester tilts her head. “Yeah. But we’ll get used to it, I think.” 

“Yes,” Wanda says. She smiles, slowly. 

Ester smiles back.

“I think so too,” Wanda says, finally.

Then she crawls into Ester’s lap, and lays her palm against her jaw, and kisses her. 

Ester can feel her sink into it. The familiar give and take—their lips coming together and breaking apart, her hand in Wanda’s hair, messing it up, putting her where Ester wants her. Wanda’s hands curling under Ester’s shirt, over her hips, sneaking under her waistband, tracing her spine, tempting her.

“Hey. Can I fuck you?” Ester breathes into her mouth. 

Wanda’s breath shudders right out of her, and her hips curl needily into Ester’s. She tugs at Ester’s shirt, but Ester leans back a bit.

“Wanda, sweetheart, no—that was a serious question. Can we have sex in this guest room? Is it fucking wiretapped or something?” 

“Wiretapping is for phones,” Wanda replies. She resettles in Ester’s lap, straddling her thigh so she can grind down on it. Slides her hands up Ester’s shirt instead, scrapes her nails lightly around Ester’s breasts, thumbs her nipples. 

“Oh my god,” Ester breathes, nuzzling into her jaw, her face hidden in Wanda’s hair. She nips. “You’re all trouble today.” 

“I’m a handful,” Wanda agrees, breathing hard, and bites at Ester’s bottom lip.

“You need it, huh?” Ester teases. She tenses up her thigh as Wanda grinds down, feelings how Wanda’s thighs clench around her. Fuck.

“We were supposed to have a _date_ last night,” Wanda complains. She tugs at Ester’s shirt again, and manages to get it off her this time. “I was thinking about it all day.” 

“You were?” Ester reaches right down her pants, strokes over her ass. Pulls it apart a little and watches Wanda squirm in her hands. “What were you thinking about, trouble?” 

“Remember that time the air conditioning was broken?” 

“Mmhm,” Ester encourages. She pulls Wanda’s sweatpants off, and her panties while she’s at it. Wanda glares a little when Ester eases her off her thigh, but she’s not complaining when Ester pushes her back onto the bed. “Tell me.” 

“We woke up covered in sweat, and you—” Wanda gasps, distracted, when Ester pulls all Wanda’s top layers off in a heap and swoops down to suck her nipple into her mouth. She tongues at it, rolls it between her teeth the way Wanda likes it until she’s arching into Ester’s face. 

Ester gives a last little tease of a lick and draws back. Wanda’s all sweaty and pink-cheeked. God, Ester loves when she gets all messy and her hair goes everywhere and she can’t put together a sentence. She wants to hear it happen. “Keep talking,” she says. 

“You rolled over, and rubbed our legs together, and it was so—fuck—“ Ester’s nipping a little, because Wanda likes it when she soothes it, loses her mind from the littlest spark of pain— “You were so wet, all over my thigh, and I—and you just slid three fingers right into me—”

Ester draws back again, and lays her cheek on Wanda’s soft breast. “I know what you like,” she says. 

“Come here,” Wanda says, hauling Ester up by the shoulders so she can kiss at her lips, her jaw, her cheeks. So she can bite Ester’s ear and say, “Fuck me. Stretch me out, let me feel it.” 

“ _Trouble_ ,” Ester rasps, pushing Wanda back on the bed. 

Wanda’s hands are pulling at her, holding her to her body, guiding her mouth to Wanda’s neck. “Got me right where you want me?” Ester asks, in her ear. Wanda locks her ankles behind Ester’s back, curls her hips up. “Mmmm? Or not quite where you want me?” she teases. 

“Ester—” Wanda’s trying to scold, but it comes out as a gasp—Ester’s cupping her cunt. Wanda grinds up into the heel of Ester’s hand. When Ester teases a finger lightly along the wet center of her, she tightens her thighs around Ester’s ribs. 

Ester nips behind her ear. “Sweetheart, you gotta give me some room.”

Wanda makes a protesting little noise. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ester says. She rubs the heel of her hand over Wanda’s clit, wide circles over the hood, the way she likes it. “Right here. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Wanda shudders out. 

“Okay, now let me breathe, baby,” Ester says. God, Wanda’s so wet already. Ester’s fingers aren’t even doing much, just cupping her, holding her, and they’re already sticky. 

“Okay,” Wanda says. She relaxes her legs and gives Ester’s ribs enough room that she can get a full breath. 

But the girl is fucking flexible, so she doesn’t lay either of her legs down straight. She just—spreads open underneath Ester. 

“Shit. Shit, Wanda.” 

“ _Fuck_ me,” Wanda begs. 

Ester slides two fingers right into her. 

The thing about Wanda is you can shock her, drive her half out of her head, just by giving her exactly what she asks for. Wanda moans and lets her head fall back, loose, trusting. 

Wanda is pulling at her fingers inside, hot and clutching. “Yeah?” Ester says. She props herself up a little better so she can nip at Wanda’s collarbone, give her that little edge of pain she wants. She draws her fingers out slowly, feels Wanda pulling at her the whole way. They’re cheek-to-cheek now. Wanda’s hair is all over the place. Some of it’s in Ester’s mouth. She’s whining in Ester’s ear. 

God, Ester likes that. God does she like hearing that. Her cunt is fucking throbbing. 

“What’s that?” Ester asks, and pushes back in hard. Wanda gasps. “That where you want me?” 

“Uh—uh huh.” 

Ester fucks in again. 

“Ester— _Ester_ —”

“That’s right, sweetheart.” 

Ester gives her another finger. 

“Yes, Ester—thank you—”

“I know what you like, huh?” 

“Yes,” Wanda sobs. 

Ester fucks her steady and hard, bites at licks at her throat and jaw, until Wanda’s breath has gone high and thready in her ear, her cunt leaking wet all over Ester’s palm, her hips curling in and in and in against Ester’s hand. 

“You’re getting me messy,” Ester teases her, smearing it all over Wanda’s cunt, teasing at her clit. Wanda’s hand clenches in her hair. “Can you touch yourself for me?” Ester asks. She doesn’t have a hand free and she doesn’t want to move. She normally doesn’t give much of a shit about how they’re arranged, but today she wants to be right where she is: on top of this girl, Wanda’s legs sometimes crushing her ribs, Wanda’s hair annoyingly getting in her mouth, her unsteady breath in Ester’s ear. Ester can hold her and get her wet and drive her mad, right here, safe between Ester and this bed. 

“Yes,” Wanda says. She frees up a hand from where it’d snuck up Ester’s shirt, and rubs over her own clit. Ester can feel it immediately—the way she tilts her hips just right for it, sweet and familiar—the way Wanda’s pussy clutches at Ester’s fingers, letting her feel that stretch. 

“Give me another one,” Wanda murmurs in Ester’s ear. She runs her free hand through Ester’s hair. “Ester—”

“Okay, baby,” Ester replies. She slides her pinky into Wanda, pushes all four fingers deep. 

“God,” Wanda gasps. 

“That’s right. That’s right,” Ester says, fucking her steady, and—there—Wanda is clenching up around her, pulling her in and in and in, rhythmic; she’s arching hard into Ester’s body. Ester drinks in all the little suppressed gasps and moans. 

Ester can’t even see much of her, they’re so close. But goddamn is Wanda gorgeous when she comes. 

Ester slows down, stills, let Wanda come down with Ester’s fingers filling her up. 

“Good?” she murmurs, as Wanda’s breathing evens out. 

“Oh my god,” Wanda replies. She tightens around Ester’s fingers one last time. “Yes.” 

“Good.” Ester smiles, and sits up so she can pull Wanda’s hair out of her mouth. 

Wanda, flushed and gorgeous and still spread out like a fucking wet dream, laughs watching Ester struggle. One of her hands is covered in come and Wanda’s hair is long. They hadn’t even slowed down to get it back in a bun. Sheesh. 

“Hey,” Wanda says, quietly, sliding a hand up Ester’s thigh. 

“Huh?”

“I can help with that,” Wanda says. She lifts a hand up between them, and curls her fingers in slowly. 

They glow faintly red. Wanda’s hair floats away from Ester. It’s as though they were underwater. As though gravity had just let a bit of Wanda loose. 

“Oh,” Ester murmurs. “Oh—wow.” 

She locks eyes with Wanda. Watches her smile spread slowly. 

“Not scared?” Wanda asks. The glow fades from her hand, and her hair drops to her chest. 

“No,” Ester says. “Not yet. It’s—wow, Wanda. It’s gorgeous.” 

Wanda beams, and sits up to hug her tight. 

“I’ll show you more another time,” she promises. “When I’m not concussed.” 

“Okay,” Ester replies, a little muffled. “You realize you just got all your hair in my mouth again.”

Wanda laughs. “I thought hair in mouth was okay and not something to worry about during sex,” she says. “You didn’t think we were done, did you?” 

Ester’s cunt literally throbs, clenching down around nothing.

“I mean, I did, but I could be talked around,” Ester replies, a little short of breath. 

Wanda giggles. God, she’s such a dork. Ester loves it. 

“Could I talk you into sitting on my face?” Wanda asks. She goes pink all over again.

“Uh, yeah, honey, you could,” Ester laughs. Now she’s blushing too. She’s never done that. “Oh my god.” 

“I’m really tired!” Wanda protests. “I don’t wanna hold myself up. Or move. B—”

“So what you’re saying is, we should take a nap?”

“ _But_! I was going to finish, _but_ I want to—I want to eat you out.” 

“On board, but sweetheart, seriously, we—”

Wanda pulls Ester’s shirt off with a satisfied little sound at the back of her throat. 

She smoothes the tips of her fingers up Ester’s belly, and the undersides of her breasts, and pinches her nipples just firmly enough to pull without losing her grip. Ester can hardly breathe.

“You were saying?” Wanda kisses at the edge of Ester’s open mouth. 

“Shit,” Ester finally manages. Wanda’s rolling her nipples between thumb and finger.

Wanda lays back down. “Get up here,” she murmurs. “It’ll be good.” 

“My god, okay, I’m talked around, we’re there,” Ester laughs. 

She’s thought about this before. A lot. She used to get really derailed thinking about how embarrassing it would be to knee-walk up a woman’s body and settle on her face. Turns out it isn’t so bad when the woman looks like she wants to eat you alive. 

It takes a little bit of arranging—Wanda licks up her once, laughs, and eases Ester back onto her chest so she can get another pillow beneath her head. 

“Okay,” she says, then, and pulls Ester in. 

Wanda nuzzles in, sweetly, and sucks a little at Ester’s folds. She’s teasing. She’s trying to tease because it sometimes takes Ester a little bit to warm up. But today, Ester’s already soaking. Wanda notices—she moans, low, and licks straight into Ester’s cunt. Follows her tongue with a finger. 

“Shit, Wanda,” Ester gasps, blushing, grinding down on Wanda’s face. “This is going to be fast.” 

Wanda’s in—fuck—deep. Ester’s never felt her tongue like this before and it’s—god. It’s so wet and it’s _not enough_. It’s not enough in the best possible way. It makes Ester tighten up again and again around her finger, wanting to feel the tease of it. 

Wanda hmmms into her cunt, and Ester grinds down, whines “Yeah—sweetheart, yeah.” God, she knows how to drive Ester to the fucking edge. How to make her mad for it, to get her wet and give her just enough so she can feel how fucking empty and needy she is—

God, they’re doing this again. They’re doing this every night. _Fuck_. 

Wanda, reading Ester’s increasingly jittery grinding, starts stroking at Ester’s clit with one hand. The finger in Ester’s cunt curls forward. And again, and again, and again—

“Oh— _oh_ —” Ester gasps, and comes, just like that. 

She lets herself fall to the side. When she blinks her eyes open, she’s curled up in the pillows with Wanda’s face resting on her thigh. 

“Hey you,” Wanda says, all soft and sweet like Ester’s the one who needs taking care of. 

“Hey,” Ester says. “Holy shit.” 

Wanda grins. “I’ll take you up on that nap now,” she murmurs. 

“Amen to that,” Ester mutters. She sets her phone to silent and crawls under the covers. She’s the big spoon today. Wanda is warm and smooth against her. Ester holds her closer. Kisses her neck. 

“Wanda. I know this isn’t what you wanted. But I’m glad, in a way. You know? I’m glad that I get to know all of you.” 

Wanda relaxes back against her. “Me too.” 

“Really?” Ester breathes. Her lips are brushing the back of Wanda’s neck.. 

“Really.” 

* * *

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Sam cracks one eye open and groans. It’s 6:30 a.m. and his phone is buzzing on his chest. 

It’s Friday. He has to go to work. Fuck.

He shouldn’t have slept on Steve and Bucky’s couch again. His back is screaming at him, and his own damn apartment is only a fifteen minute walk from here. 

Even yesterday, he logically knew that Steve and Bucky and Ester would take care of Wanda. But he took a personal day anyway to keep an eye on her. Check on her concussion symptoms. Make sure Maria wasn’t retraumatizing her. Make sure Bucky didn’t feed her twelve meals in a single day. Things like that.

He did good. It’s all good. She’s doing good. 

Unfortunately, Sam still feels a little like the noncustodial parent who was supposed to take care of the kid for the weekend and now has to explain a broken arm. Fucking awful feeling.

Luckily the metaphor breaks down in several places. For one, it’s not like Clint and Natasha could possibly be more responsible superhero parents than Sam. 

For another, it is not actually Sam’s negligence that caused a plane in New Jersey to have technical malfunctions. 

Jesus. He’s had his hands full this past year-and-change coming out of literal exile and getting a lease and getting a job and making sure Steve wasn’t gonna kill himself while Barnes was on trial and making sure Barnes wasn’t gonna (accidentally) kill Steve once he _wasn’t_ on trial—and okay, okay, so it’s been a lot, but now that he’s more settled maybe he should start looking for a therapist too. Keep an eye on himself, for once,

If nothing else, his social work clients would probably appreciate it if he kept his shit together. 

_Bzz. Bzz._

Sam hits stop this time so his alarm won’t snooze again and rolls to a cranky seat on the couch. 

“Hey Wilson,” Barnes says from way too close. “Want breakfast?” 

Sam jumps a foot in the air, which is a lot for someone whose body wants to be asleep. 

Bucky is crouched about arms length away in the half-darkness. 

“Why,” Sam groans, heart racing. 

“Breakfast?” Barnes says again, standing up and shaking out his legs. “This is a valuable offer Wilson, come on.” 

“Do you have muscle cramps right now? How long were you watching me sleep for?” Sam asks. 

“Hypervigilance is a bitch,” Bucky replies casually. He digs a bunch of stuff out of the refrigerator and lights the stove. Then he cracks about eight eggs into a skillet. “If you want more than two of these eggs, it’s now or never.”

Sam rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Three, please,” he says. “Mind if I shower?” 

“Go for it.” 

Sam stops rubbing his eyes and looks over. Bucky is testing the heat with his metal hand. 

Sam’s life is ridiculous. At least, for today, everybody’s in one piece. 

* * *


End file.
